This year China makes grassroots work experience a requirement for civil service hopefuls eyeing central- and provincial-level posts, aiming to both refine policy-making and to encourage fresh graduates to work in grassroots communities.

China's central and provincial governments will only recruit new civil servants, except for some special posts, from the pool of applicants with at least two years of grassroots working experience by 2012, a senior official in charge of the National Public Servant Exam told Xinhua ahead of the upcoming 2012 selection round. The official did not elaborate on what "special posts" include.

"The new policy is a change in the cultivation strategy for fresh college graduates. And it will encourage them to seek jobs at the grassroots level and in remote regions," said Wang Yukai, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Generally, Chinese college graduates flock to big cities for jobs, even if that means compromising their quality of life. Stories of "ants tribes," college graduates roughing it in shabby rentals in city outskirts for a chance at a job in big cities, have surfaced in recent years and underlined the problem.

The new civil service policy further encourages fresh graduates to go grassroots by urging government organs at or below the county level to recruit more recent graduates.

According to official statistics, 78.3 percent of civil servants admitted at or below the county level last year were fresh college graduates.

"New graduates may not by fully capable of performing their duties if they begin their careers in central or provincial governments," said Wang, adding that a recent graduate's lack of experience may result in flawed policy-making.

As part of the civil service exam reform, the country began reserving more vacancies for college graduates having worked as village officials, workers and farmers.

The central government admitted 131 from this category last year, or 13.4 percent of its total recruits, and 81 of them were college graduates-turned-village officials.

As China's employment situation in recent years has become increasingly grim, civil servant posts, which the public considers decent and stable jobs, have become the most sought-after positions.

The highly competitive annual National Public Servant Exam, which includes an aptitude test and a written policy essay, attracted 1.03 million applicants last year for some 16,000 vacancies around the country.

Only one out of 59 exam takers made it to civil service posts, according to official figures.

Meanwhile, a single post available in the National Energy Administration attracted 4,961 applicants.

While the new requirement may narrow recent graduates' options in the job hunt, an enthusiastic civil service hopeful surnamed Pan from Ocean University of China said that "grassroots working experience will make people more mature in tackling problems and I won't change my plan."

"People with working experience will help improve the quality and efficiency of government in the long run," Pan added, resolving to apply for a grassroots post.

However, the new requirement does not change much for students who take the exam hoping to get lucky.

"The new policy does not change much as the exam is still surrounded by fierce competition. I haven't invested much hope in it," said Jia Wen, a graduate student in Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Of those recruited by central government departments, over 75 percent came from ordinary families, and their parents were often workers, farmers, teachers, doctors or engineers, the senior official said in the interview with Xinhua, showing the fairness of the exam.

Statistics from the State Administration of Civil Service showed that exams in the past five years had been taken by 11.77 million people, among whom 620,000 were recruited as civil servants.